Three weeks ago, I endured a massive amount of pain and humiliation. No, scratch that. Saying I “endured” it makes it sound like it was thrust upon me. Like I gallantly suffered, knowing I had no other choice.

What I should say is, “three weeks ago, I sought out, signed up, and went out of my way to enjoy an evening of pain and humiliation.”

In short, I had a body composition analysis performed (which is to say, I found out precisely how fat I am), along with a VO2 Max test (which is to say, I found out exactly how weak I am).

Today, I finally feel I have recovered enough to reveal the results of this ordeal.

But First, A Shameless Plug for Sans AutoSans Auto is one of the frequent commenters on this blog. What you may not know about him is that in real life he’s working on his doctorate in something impressive-sounding that has something to do with food and exercise.

Sans Auto is the one who volunteered to do these tests on me, and he’s also been giving me some great nutrition advice. He’s currently sharing that advice with others on his own blog. If you’re working on fitness and weight loss and are interested in hearing practical advice from someone who understands the science of nutrition, I’d highly recommend reading what he has to say. Check out these entries:

Bioenergetics: Here, Sans Auto describes the simple technique he explained to me — the technique that has helped me get halfway to my weight loss goal in eight weeks.

Carbohydrates and Hunger: As a cyclist, I’ve never bought into any low-carb diet — I know that if I don’t have carbs in my system, I can’t train for endurance cycling. What I didn’t know was how carbs work and what kinds to eat. Sans does a good job of explaining it. I had wondered why the brown rice and the rolled-oats muesli have been working so well for me. Now I know.

Sans Auto says he’s going to be doing more posts in his no-nonsense nutrition guide, mostly to help other people beat me in the B7 Challenge.

Pfff.

Back to the Evening of SufferingAnyway, back in the end of January, Sans Auto said he’d help me measure my fat percentage and my VO2 Max. Having had my fat percentage measured with calipers before, I wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of a fat percentage test. But it wasn’t like that at all.

You know what it was like? It was like sitting in the Egg Chair from Mork and Mindy. When it’s sealed.

After that, Sans Auto (his friends call him “Sans”), gave me the bad news: I weighed 169.6 pounds, of which 36 pounds was fat.

That’s a fat percent of 21.3%.

Yikes.

Sans tried to soften the blow. “That’s really not too bad,” he said. “Just think what it would have been if we had done this test at the beginning of the year!”

Yeah, thanks a lot, Sans Auto (notice how I didn’t call you just “Sans” there?).

By the way, assuming my lean weight hasn’t changed, my current fat percentage would now be 18.6%. And if I hit my goal weight (148 pounds), my fat percentage will be about 9.8%.

When I get down to that weight, Sans says he’ll test me again. I’m looking forward to the comparison.

VO2 Max TestWhile the fat percentage test is only emotionally painful, the VO2 Max hurts in a seriously physical way.

I strapped on a heart rate monitor, got situated on a stationary bike, and then let Sans attach a medieval torture device to my head, nose and mouth, the purpose of which is to ensure it captures all the breath I exhale while riding.

The rules were simple, Sans explained. Every couple minutes he’d increase the resistance by forty watts, until we reached 210 watts. Then he’d increase the resistance by twenty watts every two minutes. When I blew up, we’d know what my VO2 Max is.

Oh, and also he’d be taking pictures (you can click on any of the below pictures to see a larger, sweatier view, if you want to see my suffering in greater detail).

At first, I had my game face on. I’m very focused. I see no reason why I should not max out at 800 watts. I tried to impress Sans by showing what a fast cadence I can spin.

I assert, however, that whoever invented this contraption had no sense of style at all. That nose-pinching thing totally doesn’t go with the rest of the getup. Seriously.

Ten minutes later, though, I’m no longer so composed. At this point I’ve just hit 210 watts and my lactate threshold. I’m sweating hard and — due to my inability to close my mouth — I cannot swallow at all. My throat is painfully dry — and in fact, all the next day my throat would be sore from maxing myself out for twenty minutes without swallowing once.

By the time I had gone fifteen minutes, I was hurting for real. My legs hurt, my lungs hurt, and — as you can see from the way I’ve got a death-grip on the bars here — my arms hurt. This, evidently, is what 250 watts feels like.

I should note that by this time I no longer appreciated being photographed. In fact, I had gone to my wilfully-angry place, where I resent everyone and everything.

In this final photograph, I am mere seconds away from shutting down. I no longer even realize that I am being photographed. I have shut my eyes as part of a clever scheme to block out all sensory input and just concentrate on turning circles.

There is nothing but the circle. Turn the circle. Turn nice, round circles. Turn the cir…oh mother, please! Stop the pain! Stop the pain! Please, just turn off the machine that makes the pain!

In the EndWhen all is said and done, I evidently have a VO2 max of 51.5. ”51.5 of what?” you ask?

To which I answer, “51.5 units of pure pain.”

This number, of course, meant absolutely nothing to me. Trying to get a sense of how I did, I asked Sans, “So, how’s 51.5?”

“Not bad at all, for someone your age,” said Sans Auto.

“So, what’s your VO2 Max?” I asked.

“Around 60.”

Whatever.

Anyway, at my max, I was turning out 310 watts. My heartrate hit 195 — two beats per minute more than I previously thought I could hit.

Oh, and also I showed Sans Auto what I thought of his torture device by punching him right in the solar plexus.

No, that’s not true. Actually, I asked him to run the tests on me again in April, and then one last time again in July, to see what kind of progress I’m making.

You know, because I had so much fun.

PS: Today’s weight: 163.4

PPS: As of this morning, another frequent commenter on this blog, BotchedExperiment, will have turned in his doctoral dissertation. Except for the formality of defending this dissertation next week, he’s done. Please join me in congratulating his eminent doctrines, Doctor BotchedExperiment.

The protagonist, BotchedExperiment, is seen exiting a dark and low-slung building that has a ridiculously tall white faÃ§ade. If it werenâ€™t for the emerging spare tire, he could be described as shriveled. He is alarmingly pale and walks slightly hunched over. His over-all appearance is that of a person much older than his actual chronological age.

Botched squints and tries to block out the sun with one hand. He looks around confusedly, â€œMy God, I donâ€™t remember the sun being so bright. Itâ€™s winter!? I didnâ€™t realize it was winter. What happened to fall?â€

Botched walks to the parking lot and cranks the engine on his 1986 Accord. It hasnâ€™t been started in weeks and sputters pathetically. He gets on the highway and points the faded, dinged, and rusted car home. Slowly. Between the misfiring engine and the bald, nearly deflated tires, anything over 50 mph is a theoretical impossibility.

Botched rolls down his window and sticks his head into the wind. He cranes his neck around and looks above his car. â€œGraduate school, 6 years.â€ â€œAh, well look on the bright side,â€ Botched tells himself, â€œUhhhh (a long silence). There was free pizza every 3 weeks.â€

Botched arrives home. He enters the front door to find a young girl playing with My Little Pony memory cards. She looks up in alarm and runs into the next room, â€œMommy, thereâ€™s a stranger in the house.â€

First off, thanks for plug. what is VO2 max? Fatty’s is 51.5 ml/kg/min. That is milliliters of oxygen used per kilogram of body weight per minute. It is your aerobic power or ability to use oxygen (the more the better you will be at endurance events). I just looked up percentile ranks for VO2 max…51.4 is the cutt-off for the 90th percentile for men aged 20-29. For your age group the 90th percentile begins at 48.2. Rumor has it that Lance puts out a number above 80, and some Norwegien x-country skiers are over 100.

I did a little math and if you weighed 148 pounds your VO2max would be 58.8 assuming that you still consumed the same amount of O2 absolutely. With the training program you’re on you will likely gain a few extra points in mitochondrial density and cardiac output.

Congrats Botched… I’m looking forward to that final bike ride home when i get to see the caption bubbles. you got free pizza? Maybe I’m in the wrong program.

As much as I’d like to visit my own version of that toture room here for my personal benefit, I cannot. While there is no shortage of people who are excited about making me suffer, none of them can give me numbers that would produce a good idea of my current fitness level or improvement come summer. Analysis like “it took him 13.2 seconds to hit the bottom after I pushed him over the guardrail” and “he screamed for three minutes and sixteen seconds after I clamped the vice grips on his excess bellyfat” won’t do me any good in the long run.

If you can give me an idea on how to track down local (Redding, CA) bodyfat analysis (no pinchers or BMI, please) and/or VO2 Max testing I’ll gladly submit myself in the name of science.

to the layperson it would seem so….but sadly, no. nothing can be done with this subject. He is far to honest and trustworthy an individual for unnatural performance enhancement. Plus, he has recently maxed out the credit card he has on file with us, and has been ignoring our phone calls.

paging mr. smarty, sans auto…. how does wattage compare between the test you gave fatty and a sub-maximal wattage test? dug, rick s. and have done the latter and all agree it wasn’t that hard. did you really work fatty over or is he just a big wuss?

I’m pretty sure I would vomit all over that tube if I had to ride with that thing in my mouth. As Bradk stated, the sub-max watt test was very different. I felt like I just got going and it was over. Of course on that test, I had a tube coming out of the other end….was that really necessary? Brad, Dug, did they put a tube up you for that test??

You would get a kick out of Mark Sisson’s entertaining health and fitness blog. Mark was a former pro triathlete/ironman who helped royally piss off ITU and also played a pivotal role in anti-doping rules. Now he just rants – and it is immensely enjoyable! Totally tube-free (the things athletes put themselves through…Mark has some misgivings now about pro athletics because of the toll it takes on a lot of athletes. I’ll still push myself though…)

Congrats Dr. Botched!! and Thank You Sans for the interesting blog entries. I couldn’t figure out how to email you for those bean recipes so if you can figure it out email them to me please!

As far as Fatty, your numbers are pretty good. My VO2 was lower as is my max hr but I topped out @ 350 watts last March in an untrained state. Our intervals were also at 3 minutes not a measly 2 like yours. Boy did you have it easy! Stop telling people it was hard. My 1st test of the year is at the end of March so it will be interesting to compare to your April numbers since I outweigh you by about 60 lbs right now! Oi! Of course all of these numbers are purely personal and effect different individuals differently but they do give a good indication of fitness. Keep up the good work Fatty and all the other B7′ers!!

So Sans Auto is helping Fatty lose weight and beat us. Hmmm, I know! Let’s kill him.
Dr. Botched, sounds good. i was 40 before I paid off my student loans from graduate school, so it could be worse…..I am sure your daughter will be very proud one day, once she gets to know you, that is….
Fatty, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but that is without question the best front-on pix of you that i have ever seen. You look like one of those manly F16 pilots, a little bit Tom Cruisian, y’know? So like have you actually SAT in the Mork chair when its sealed? That would support my theory that you, like Robin Williams and Al M., are not of this earth…..

BE- whats not worth it? I’m going to assume you mean the schooling cause if you ment his racing then I’m pretty sure you’d get flogged. I can’t imagine this group would be too friendly to that kind of cycling criticism.

Congratulations Botched. Now I know why I thought you were a worthy cause a few blogs back. FC The last time I did a similar test I achieved championship status at dribbling. I was continually filling up the container because I could not swallow much to the amusement of the testing staff on hand. I went close to drowning.

Botched – well done. You stuck out something that I lasted about 3 months in (and that was just my Bachelors). I bow down to your emminence.

Sans – that wasn’t that the “dunk test” that you did on Fatty? I want to go in one of those, they look like fun, because I don’t have a bath at home, only a shower. :)

Fatty – 21.3 you were… that’s about where I am now (except I’m a girl and supposed to have more fat on me). I think this adds another dimension to the B7…

We’re just doing fitness testing in our Personal Training course – the fitness cycles, walking tests, calipers, . They seem to want us to use BMI levels as a good measures of health – but even at the old goal weight I had (too low I’ve discovered) I would still be considered overweight – at 11% bodyfat. Fatty is getting the full work up, because it no only recognises body composition, but also fitness capacity – the old “fit vs. fat” debate.

wish there were a place in philly to get VO2 max tested — maybe it would motivate me to start working out again.

had my VO2 max tested once on a treadmill in baltimore at union memorial hospital — they put that funny device on your head and over your mouth, started you out at 3 mph increased by 1 mph every 2 minutes until 7 mph and then every 2 minutes increased the incline by 2 percent. I crumped out when the incline hit 12%.

My vo2 max was 67.5 — about 15 pounds and 10 years ago — while I was actually running regularly instead of at work or lurking on this blog…

Hey Sans, nice blog, informative. Your diet approach seems to jive with the South Beach diet pretty much, which I am doing. BTW, next time you test Fatty, see if you can add a pez-like dispenser to the mask that will spit out an M&M every 15 seconds or so. Tell him its part of the test.
BTW I have never had a Vo2 Max test, but I did have a barium edema and a colonic irrigation once each. The colonic was done by a female assistant that had pink spiked hair and a ring in her nose. I was 28 at the time so it was pretty weird. Thought you would like to know.

I see that some people are interested in VO2 testing. If you want the tubes and stuff you have to find a cariac/pulmonary clinic or a research lab at a university. They will likely charge you an arm and a leg. I found a link to the Bruce protocol which is a max test without the tube which gives a really good idea of VO2 max. Don’t do this if you’re not in good shape or if your doctor tells you not to. http://www.worldar.com/endurance/bruce.htm The only problem most people will have is finding a treadmill that will go to a 20% grade.

BradK– it sounds like Rick S and Dug did a submax. that is easier than what Fatty did.

Rick S.– I don’t think you would puke during this test, we have other tests designed for that… If you ever want to do a Wingate, that’s the vomit test (Fatty refused).

Clydesdale– sansauto at gmail then I’ll send you some recipes.

Barry– try to kill me huh… By any chance are you a truck driver that was going through South Provo today? and are you still with that assistant with the pink spiked hair?

I was working with one of them coach types last year, and he did a VO2 max and body-fat test on me. It hurt a bunch, and the mask made me feel crazy claustrophobic. I didn’t break 80 on the VO2 test, but it was pretty close. He only had skin-fold calipers, though nice ones, available for the body fat test.

He kinda frowned over them a couple of times, and said, “this isn’t going to be very helpful.” Why is that, I asked? “Because, um, the best we’ve got is plus or minus 4 percent, and I’m reading you at about 4 percent body fat. So, um, you’re either dead, or it’s somewhere like 4 to 8 percent.”

And I’d just like to mention for anyone that didn’t read it as obviously in sans auto’s reply: VO2 max in numbers like 50, 70, etc, is in ml / kg / hour. Note the KG being divided out. Lose weight, gain VO2! Some people also consider the total number, but only weird ones.

Fatty and Sans,
Good writing, both! Thank you!
Back in the day, when the OTC really WAS a barracks in Colorado Springs, they used to have these lovely winter training camps for national team types and wanna-bes.
Eddy B was there and so were a bunch of Olympic Committee athletic trainer guys and gals who probed prodded, tested touched, and put us in underwater vats to measure body fat, etc. The fat guys were surprising…one guy, Larry Shields, two time Junior National Road Champ in the mid 70’s, tested really high in body fat, like 13%, and the coaches freaked….He got barely any better by mid season, and they sorta wrote him off as ‘not serious’ or a ‘weak west-coaster’ or something…his VO2max was like 82, though, so he still kicked most everybody’s ass. Armstrong was tested in the low 80’s and high 80’s, but that was before the, er, ah, VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS! Right!!! LeMond was tested just above 90, and we all know he was an incredible physical machine, and with 5% bodyfat, well, he killed everahboddy for years. I hated the VO2max test…it really hurt, especially in January at 6000 feet. So then they brought it down to San Diego in this groovy Motor Home three months later, and I tested again. I always wondered why I had to spit blood for four weeks in Colorado in the winter, riding with animals like Kiefel and Nitz, when I could have waited, surfed, ate some tiramisu, and done training without three layers of tights and wool hats and all that nonsense. I remember Kevin Lutz had a bodyfat of like 2.5 or 3%, and he was reallllyyyy fit…I was like 11% then with a VO2max of 60, and was destined to get an MBA, and then actually work for a living. I am afraid to get tested now, so I will go eat some cheeseburgers and fries, and wait to ride tomorrow morning!
Cheers, Cowboy

You know Cowboy, back in the day this blog was all about the Cheeseburgers, Chocalate products and poor cycling efforts. It had diet strategies like “eat all you want because after a certain point your body won’t absorb anymore calories” and lengthy posts about what food combinations taste best right outa the fridge. There were tall stories about small biking acheivements, like the examples of exaggerated efforts put forth in just riding over waterbars, not gigantic homemade seesaws. The Fat Cyclist rode with people like Bob (sorry Bob) and not the 24 Hours of Moab SS champs. The Fat Cyclist was a man of the people, someone we could look up to while talking down to him. But this was before the talk about brown rice and nutritional indexes or about independent leg rotations and maximum Vo2 uptake – before his handlers and spin doctors got a hold of him.

Who needs Mork’s egg, or even body fat calipers. I raced at 160 pounds and I’m currently 240 pounds. That puts me at 33.3% body fat assuming I was racing at 0% which I’m sure isn’t the case. On the other hand, VO2 max has me interested. Since the University of the Sunshine Coast (the other USC) has its Centre for Healthy Activity, Sport and Exercise (CHASE) less than a 3 minute ride from my front door I’m now going to beg them to test me within an inch of my life. Just for the fun of it.

C’mon, we all know these pictures don’t show fatty being tested, they just show him in his natural, cyborg, state. No human would ever consider cutting their peanut butter with tofu.

And Whoo, go Botched! It’s common to get quite stressed between submission and defence, but remember two things:
1) This gives you an (even better) excuse to go ride.
2) If your supervisor is even half-way competent, he wouldn’t let you submit if you’re not about to pass.

I’m assuming (and now desperately hoping) that point two is reassuring to you.

Bike Mike in Oz – I’m going to be up in good old QLD in two weeks – can they book me in for one of those tests when you’re done with them? :) Just what a girl needs to do on holidays.

BTW, I hope it’s blinking warm and sunny up there. I am not driving 11 hours for a week of rain. 10th – 17th March, I’m warning you now – “beautiful one day, perfect the next” better live up to it’s expectation.

Having done the whole VO2 max thing a few times in my life… oh my goodness, what a horrible test. The best is when they use the needle to prick your ear every few minutes to get your lactate. That is fun times because you know that the longer you bike the more times they draw your blood. I did this research study (for someone’s PhD) where I got to sit on a trainer at 75% of my VO2 max output for 90 minutes while getting my blood drawn from a catheter that stayed in your arm the entire time, having blood pressure measurements, body composition tests and drinking this drink (that they were studying) and having to breath into the torture device… then they put you up to 85% max and you just go until you cannot keep a cadence of 60 rpms. We had to do this 12 times. 4 sets of them were one day and then again the next day. It was terrible. But I would totally sign up for another one anytime.

21.3% Fat Cyclist-
Nope, I wasn’t a winner in the Leadville lottery this year, hence the bitter ‘tude about your fitness. Stop over if tonight if you’d like, I going to have pizza, hot wings followed up with an excellent peach cobbler and caramel ice cream. I’ll order a large pizza for you too. Don’t worry about selling out and hitting the big time, you’ll keep your real friends, because they’ll want a peice of the pie too (even if its a whole wheat, no sugar added).

For info on how to lose weight without losing muscle mass read Power Eating by Susan Kleiner:

It is written for body builders, which no cyclist claims to be, but she has great info on how your meal plan should be set up to keep your body from losing its hard won muscle when cutting. Hopefully you are stength training.

JSun,
Moved and seconded.
The good old days were just that. Good, and now I’m old. We do sorta pride ourselves on the fact that the crew here on the ranch NEVER rides with a cycle computer….so natural…so inviting…so real…so organic!
Oh, and Fatty, try this for NO suspension…the ultimate hardtail…a cross bike with good snow tires….(one gets to polish one’s wheelbuilding skills regularly!).